Alvin Gentry Media Availability – July 13, 2020

On Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s wrist injury:
“He is a full go, and his wrist is fine. As a matter of fact, he’s had some really good practices here. I think his confidence is beginning to increase, and obviously, for him, confidence is everything. I also talked to him along the lines of every player wants it right now, and sometimes it takes [a while]. It’s a process to get there, and I think he understands that more than he did. Every rookie coming in wants to be able to be in the rotation, be able to play, and he’s had some opportunities to be on the court. I think he’s in a good place right now, and I think he’ll continue to get better. As I said, he understands that this is a process to get where he wants to get to, and he still has a chance to get to the finish line. It may not be as quickly as he wanted to.”

On his secret to getting players to grow ¾ of an inch in a three-month span:
“I wish I had the answer to all of that. I really do. If I did I’d be in my condo in Maui, right now. I don’t have a secret. I wish I did, but I think it’s a great thing when we get guys growing and growing and continue to grow. We like that.”

On Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s G-League assignment:
“I think he did. It’s unfortunate that he was injured down there, but I think the thing that every guy really wants is that he wants an opportunity to be on the court and play. Obviously, he wasn’t playing very much for us, and he just wanted to be on the court and have an opportunity to go out and compete and play. Unfortunately, for him, he had the wrist injury when it happened. As I said, he understands that it’s a process, and he’ll get there.”

On what he has seen from Nicolò Melli and how can he help the team in Orlando:
“He’s a typical European guy in that he’s a big guy that can step out on the floor and shoot the ball exceptionally well. The thing that makes him a little bit different is that I think he has the capability of making plays with the basketball. He’s shown us that also, and he’s been able to play inside for us. So it took me a while to understand exactly what he could give to our team, but he’s made some great contributions. When we needed shooting, we’ve stuck him in the game, and he’s played well. It seems to me that – or it appears to me, anyway – that he and Zion (Williamson) are a good combination of guys to have out on the floor together in our frontcourt in certain situations.”

On Lonzo Ball’s improvement over the last year and if he has seen a player improve more than he has in a span of one year:
“I don’t think I have. I think he’s made great improvements. The one thing I think that really helped him is that he didn’t have any major injuries. He just had a lot of nagging injuries that kind of slowed him down a little bit. I think the one thing is that he is completely healthy now. He feels good about the situation that he’s in. I think the guys believe in him. He makes players better. I think that’s a big thing with being a really good point guard you have to have the ability to make players better. He does that. Zion loves playing with him. I think he gets him three or four easy baskets a game, and then I think he’s in a good place, just mentally. I think he realizes that we totally believe in him, that he’s our leader on the floor. He’s really done a great job of accepting that and understanding that. He’s really flourishing at that position right now. We’re happy to have him. I think the one thing that he continues to work on, and he’s done it in our practices that we’ve had here, is that he wants to get better defensively. He wants to become an elite defender. I think he has the abilities to do that, and he continues to work in that direction.”

On Jaxson Hayes’s traits that allowed him to start 12 games and be in the rotation as a rookie:
“I think the main thing is with him once again it’s the situation where you’re going to get to the finish line, you just may not get there as quickly as you’d like, but he’s going to be a terrific player in the league. Obviously, there’s some things that he has to learn, and he has to get stronger. He has to have a stronger base, a stronger core, but that’s all going to come. You’re talking about a 19 year old kid, so there’s a lot of growing to do there. I think he gave us some energy when he was in the lineup. He has the ability to get out and run with just about any big guy in the league. A really, really good weak-side shot blocker. He continues to learn pick-and-roll defense, as to what we do when we have our big dropping. That’s a process also, but he’s a good young player that’s going to continuously get better. Number one, because just the whole maturation process that you go through in this league, and number two, I think he has a desire to do that.”

On how Jaxson Hayes earned his trust to be a part of the rotation:
“Well, I think what you try to do – and we’d like to try to do with every player, I mean obviously we can’t – but to just be out on the floor for a few minutes just to keep you involved in the game, I think more when you’ve been able to play a few minutes on the floor, and we needed it in that situation where we’re not going to play Favs (Derrick Favors) theses long stretches of minutes. Sometimes we’d get into foul trouble in those situations, so Jaxson has been really good about stepping in and when we needed for those six, seven, eight minutes being able to come in and contribute.”

On Nickeil Alexander-Walker switching to playing predominantly left-handed while his right wrist was injured:
“Well, I think the fact that he played with it tells you what kind of kid that he his and he enjoys being out there. He didn’t want to go down there (to the G League), and then all of a sudden was sitting out games, so he did. He played basically left-handed for a game and took a couple of jump shots with his left hand, but he’s a pretty ambidextrous guy anyway. He’s more of a left-handed player than he is a right-handed player. Obvio0suly, he shoots right, but most of his ball-handling and everything is with his left hand anyway. He just wanted to be on the floor, and he didn’t want to have to sit out when he was down there, and that was that he went ahead and got out on the floor and played although the right wrist was completely sore.”